We're Not Broken
by Agnes Cornel
Summary: If you're immortal you seek out reminders of your past. You want someone who knows you, even if it's an enemy because in the end you will question the reality of your life.


**A/N: SPOILERS: 4x23  
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Pairing: Rebekah/Elena**

Warnings: hurt/comfort, futurefic.

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**WE'RE NOT BROKEN**

Rebekah doesn't know exactly how it happened but on a drowsy Friday night she finds herself drinking shots with Elena at the corner table of her favorite bar.

She goes here almost every night to enjoy the humanity of it: the warmth of bodies, the thick scent of blood and the rapid beating of human hearts mixed with the loud and eager voices and slurry, drunken laughter. This simple mundane scene is what's left of her dream to become human again, and the illusion that she's one of them is what keeps her moving forward. And though it's only pretension, ironically it's more real than her vampire life. Somewhere along the way she's learned that being human isn't only confined to giving birth and growing older and being bound by the natural order of things, it's more like fighting, hoping and dreaming against all odds and starting a family on her own, even without blood relation.

But the tormenting promise of the mystical cure still awakens a dull pain in her chest as she looks at Elena and the memories of a town full of monsters, death and destruction rush back. It's a life she long ago buried and though the new her is strong, she doesn't want any supernatural disaster shaking her perfect world, she's content with the ordinary life of Rebekah Mikaelson, thank you very much. She fears that this girl who has so easily waltzed into her life now (and even back then she sneaked her way in without much effort, no matter how hard Rebekah tried to hate her) will be her undoing in some ways. A thought crosses her mind: Maybe Elena hasn't managed to outrun her curse which seemed to put her in danger in every possible way, as if Death itself chased her, and it will tear down Rebekah's life and burn to the ground. Maybe she will be another victim of the other's tragic life of loss and grief. And even with all of her self-preservation screaming, she can't seem to dismiss Elena, and Rebekah wonders for the first time maybe this is exactly how her brothers got caught up in the Petrova fire.

Elena is a curious thing, she muses over their drinks, a flame – bright, intense with her open personality and fierce, protective love, bringing hope and light in the darkest situations. But as Rebekah watches her extensively, she sees that Elena is not like she once was, she's like an old photo, washed out, faded away, barely recognizable despite of the familiar angles and lines of her. Rebekah can't really decide if it's because the vampirism or the ordeal she went through in Mystic Falls.

"How's college?" Elena breaks the silence between them finally.

"Good," Rebekah replies brusquely, she doesn't want to talk about anything ordinary with the only reminder of her past. And it's not like Elena really seems interested in how much Rebekah enjoys getting her third diploma.

"I never really imagined _this_ as your scene," Elena says as if she heard Rebekah's thoughts.

Rebekah only shrugs gracefully and downs another shot, focusing on the feeling of the alcohol, and not in any way on the growing panic in her chest because she fears something horrible would happen.

"Rest assured when this semester is over, I'm off to Europe travelling, sightseeing and tasting the locals." The latter she deliberately exaggerates to extort a reaction from Elena, but the other doesn't even blink.

Rebekah finds it so disturbingly unnatural that for a minute she thinks Elena flipped the switch again, but then she looks at her closely and notices how her shoulders are slightly slouched, how the muscles are twitching in her jaw and how she presses her lips into a thin white line, and how her eyes look like they're vacant houses. There's none of the non-caring determination in her, like when they went after Katherine.

Elena has her humanity on, she's just listless and then it hits Rebekah what's in front of her: Elena seems lost, as if she's in a dark forest and doesn't find breadcrumbs which would lead out. (Or maybe it's because there's no one left to leave a trail for her to follow.) Rebekah doesn't know when she had become an expert at reading Elena, so she just chalks it up as a side effect of their adventure and tries not to dwell on it.

"I thought Matt would be here with you," Elena says but without much interest, it's clear she's only tiptoeing something. Rebekah isn't sure why she lets her, maybe because she remembers all too well a time when she felt herself constantly on the verge of falling into a deep abyss.

"Matt and I had a good summer _ten years ago_," she replies with emphasis on the last three words.

Yes, they had three months full of laughter, silly things, romantic picnics, and stargazing, everything they could imagine. It was the epitome of easy life, and as close as Rebekah ever felt herself get to her fairy tale happy ending. But it ended, like everything else in her life, because Matt adamantly avoided anything supernatural. So she closed the book of her sappy romantic story in her life and got back to the real world, though the time she spent with him was – _is_ – inspiration to find something to live for and to try to be good.

"As far as I know Matt went to New York, who knows, maybe he has a wife and two and a half kids," Rebekah adds.

She doesn't say out loud a lot of things, which could make the awful truth materialize, lure out all the monsters: Matt is the only one who survived the Big Battle without a scratch, simply because he wasn't there, though he went home for his friends' funerals. And if Elena wanted to talk to him, she could have found him but she seems lost in time too, as if she's stuck in a place before all it happened, before all the blood seeped into the thirsty ground of Mystic Falls. Maybe she really doesn't know what year it is, and this thought brings a feeling of sadness so profound it startles her.

"Look, Elena," she says as softly as she can. "As much as I'd like to reminiscence about our shared cheerful history, why did you come to me?"

And now it's Elena's turn to shrug, but the movement makes her look more fragile, as if she's nothing but skin and bone and a stronger gush of wind could break her apart. Rebekah muses if it's only because she doesn't care to eat or it's more than that. Maybe the grief reached inside her and scooped out everything that was Elena Gilbert, the girl who thought she could save everyone. Ironically, Rebekah misses her deeply right now when she's sitting beside her, and she managed not to think about her in ten years.

"I don't know," Elena answers quietly. And when she looks up at Rebekah, her eyes are full of the horror she's seen. "Tyler is on the run, after… after what happened with Caroline."

Oh, that one Rebekah remembers well, even she heard about it because Klaus went off the deep end then. Silas liked to take other people's places and to ensure he knew every little secret, even when they tried to shield their thoughts with magic, he paraded in two parts on the Mystic Falls stage play: Stefan and Caroline. And while he couldn't kill Stefan, with Caroline he didn't have this kind of problem.

"Jeremy's dead… again." Her voice breaks, and Rebekah can almost feel the tiny little cuts what these words leave on Elena. And she can utterly relate to that kind of pain, to grieve for a brother who then mysteriously reappears just to be taken away again. It's like even the universe itself is laughing at them. "And after what we had to do with Stefan…" Elena stops herself and doesn't say they practically sacrificed him just to stop the end of the world. "Damon lost his other self, they were like two sides of the same coin, without Stefan there is no one who pulls him back and there is no one who he wants to pull back from the edge."

And in that moment Rebekah understands perfectly that Elena desperately wants someone to save her, to pick up her pieces and the hero disguised as a villain left her to tend to his own wounds.

"So what do you want to do?" Rebekah asks and hopes for a lot of things she hasn't realized she wants. For Elena to stay here, to find herself again, to remind Rebekah of the old times, because even if the memories are bittersweet and painful she needs to remember. But it's not what she gets.

"Katherine." And this one word has such an intense effect on her it's almost scary. The old Petrova fire is back, but it's distorted, it's like the girl she sees in front of her is just an image in a fun house mirror. Everything is all wrong about Elena and the glint in her eyes is too harsh. "She went off the grid and I can't find her. You know some witch who can help me."

Rebekah tries to be good, really, tries to think of something that the old Elena would do, but she can't come up with a plan to stop this pointless crusade, this doomed attempt at searching for a purpose. She can't be what Elena needs, she knows this, no matter how much she's changed, she's still just a girl who's all alone because everyone leaves her, so how could she ask Elena to stay?

"Here," Rebekah says as she writes down the cell number of the best witch she can think of. "But Elena, trust me, going after Katherine is not the answer. You should know that by now that revenge doesn't get you anywhere."

Elena thanks her, but doesn't say anything else as she leaves. And as her familiar form disappears in the door, Rebekah feels strangely hollow, as if the girl who was once fire burned out something in her, but she doesn't know exactly what.

~oOo~

The next time Rebekah sees Elena, the girl is almost dead. She lies broken and bruised on the cold, damp ground of the pit, where Katherine left her. Everything smells of vervain and Rebekah can see the red welts on Elena's arms and feel the stench of burning flesh. Katherine didn't take any chance: she must have waited for her doppelganger with a trap.

Even if Katherine is a human – because the cure doesn't let her to be turned again – she's more cunning than Elena, she's spent six hundreds years running from her brother after all. And judging from Elena's wounds Katherine definitely has some vampire help, which doesn't come as a surprise: Katerina Petrova always had a way of wrapping men around her fingers.

As Rebekah commands the witch she's come with to get Elena out, she thinks of curses, blood and betrayals. She wouldn't admit it, but she and Elena are the same: victims of fate, playing out a scene written by some unseen hand. Rebekah is doomed to be the villain, the monster underneath the bed because of her mother and Elena is trapped in a deadly dance with her mirror self because of the same woman.

As the witch puts a day walking necklace around Elena's neck and proceeds to cut her wrist to feed her, Rebekah muses how both are bounded to her brother, she by her damned loyalty to family and Elena by the curse. Though Elena's blood isn't useful anymore, Klaus' taint on her life is like black ink on a sheet of paper. It caused so much suffering and so much loss there is no undoing it.

Rebekah waits with unusual patience, leaning against her car, as Elena heals. She doesn't count the minutes, she watches the sun coming up and painting the horizon blood red, until she finally hears soft footsteps behind her.

"Why?" Elena asks quietly, and her voice is barely a whisper. She doesn't ask how, it's obvious that the witch reported everything back to Rebekah.

Rebekah takes a deep breath and doesn't yell at her that it's because Elena deserves better than to burn to dust in a hole. Rebekah looks at her from the corner of her eyes, and though Elena's skin has a healthy hue again and there's no wound in sight, she seems wounded, as if she could start bleeding out from some unseen gash. Rebekah seriously contemplates if you can die of a broken heart, but dismisses the thought quickly, because she is the living – undead – proof you can't: it might hurt like you're dying, you might wish for death but you just get used to the pain and go on.

"Because," Rebekah replies slowly, her eyes are adamantly looking at the sky, "contrary to the popular belief it wasn't Matt who softened me, as my brother likes to call it. Yes, Matt showed me that no matter how weak and fragile you are against all the odds, you can always choose the right thing. But deep down, he hated anything supernatural even when he saw the humanity in them – _us_. It was because of you and Caroline he had to force himself to accept that a vampire can have feelings, because his friends were the monsters. And eventually he ran away, not that I blame him. But you… you saw the real, human girl in me, who I desperately wanted to become and I was your worst enemy back then."

They are silent for what seems like eternity, but finally Rebekah sighs and turns to Elena.

"Find yourself; find something that will bring you back, something to guide the way."

Elena doesn't say anything, but she seems to consider what Rebekah said. At least it's something, Rebekah thinks, as Elena leaves an empty space and cold air behind.

~oOo~

When Elena shows up again it's a surprise, although not an unpleasant one.

Rebekah is on some frat party which is her foolproof hunting ground, when Elena is suddenly there, drinking blood from the amiable quarterback, as if she was always there. The funny thing is, it feels like up until then something was missing and now a piece clicks into place and somehow it feels right. The scene strangely resembles the one where Elena was without her humanity, but yet it's not the same.

When they drank enough blood they switch to alcohol, they don't speak, it seems like there's an unsaid understanding between them. They are just two vampires, who know each other, who have a shared history, and if you're immortal you seek out reminders of your past. You want someone who knows you, even if it's an enemy because in the end you will question the reality of your life. Without people to remember you, you become nothing. And that's when Rebekah realizes that Elena is of these solid points in her life and she doesn't mind it, because Elena is the one who guided her back to humanity, Elena was her compass, and even though long ago she said she didn't understand why everyone is hell-bent on saving Elena, she knew the reason even back then: Elena could see through everyone, she could see the good in people, even behind the stone hard façade of pretending.

Later when they are walking off campus, Elena suddenly blurts out, "I don't how long I can bear it."

Rebekah doesn't ask what, she lets Elena speak on her own, to take as much time as she needs.

"I always thought that if I survive one more disaster, I'll be okay, and I can resume to being normal." She pauses, lets out a sharp laugh, it's a bitter sound, one that could cut you in half. "It's not like my life had any chance to be _normal_, but you know what I mean, I wanted to live, not simply exist. And slowly everyone around me started to die, and it was funeral after funeral and it still is. It's like life has a morbid sense of humor: I get to live, even if I die, I just keep coming back and…" She takes a deep breath and when she spokes again her voice is fragile. "I'm tired. I'm so tired of losing people, every time they leave a gap behind and I don't know when I'll fall apart."

Rebekah notices Elena said 'when' and not 'if' and thinks of fragile things, hopes and dreams and how easily anyone can break.

She doesn't reply, she can't, so she just reaches out and squeezes Elena's hand, hopefully converting everything she wants to say: it gets better, you're not alone, _I need you_. The last thought comes as a surprise, but as Rebekah muses over it, it feels true and right. Somewhere deep inside she knows if there wouldn't be any supernatural lingering in their lives, they could have been friends from the start, because they're the same: intense, loving, loyal and disastrously hopeful people. Rebekah wonders if it's the end of theirs: building up dreams stubbornly and suffering under their shattered ruins when life comes barging in and breaks everything apart.

But as Rebekah walks beside Elena on a deserted street in the middle of the night and feels the warmth of her body, she relaxes, and she dares to hope that maybe, just maybe, with Elena they can endure and build up something that can last.

~oOo~

Rebekah, true to her word, goes to Europe. She's alone but she enjoys the whirlwind of colors and scents, the feeling of humanity. She wraps herself in the pretense of being ordinary, and waltz around, playing the carefree young girl with easy smiles and light heart. She's so good at it she almost believes it herself, but underneath every laughter there is an uneasy feeling, like something is boiling under her skin.

It's an ever-present darkness that poisons her days, it's a feeling that something isn't right, something essential is missing. And even when she's lying with someone in bed at nights, she feels herself slipping away into the dark corner of loneliness she's always fought.

She feels like she's suffocating and strangely she can only breathe again when one afternoon Elena sits beside her in a coffee shop, like it's the most natural thing in the world. And to Rebekah it somehow is.

"Why?" Now it's Rebekah's turn to ask this question, but her voice sounds relieved, not accusing.

"You said you'd be in Europe," Elena quips, and she smiles a feeble, but genuine smile which reaches her eyes, though not quenching all the sorrow. Rebekah thinks that this is how hope feels like. "I wanted to keep an eye on you, you know, to make sure you don't eat all the locals."

Then they fell into a rhythm which is so easy and comfortable, Rebekah knows this was the thing she missed in all her life. Elena comes and goes as she pleases, but Rebekah notices that the gaps between her absences are shorter.

They do anything that comes to their mind: At night they go drinking, dancing – feeding – and it's simple fun, it's like being truly _alive_: at day they play happy tourists, going to museums and taking pictures, buying silly souvenirs. Rebekah starts to make a collage out of them: she doesn't want to let go of the remainders of the perfect and _real_ moments in her life.

And most importantly: they talk about everything. Sometimes it's just rushed words of apologies for past mistakes and sometimes it's drunken admission of fears and doubts but they are listening to each other and it makes all the difference.

Rebekah notes that Elena is more like herself, the heavy, gray cloud of grief and sorrow is slowly lifting up and letting through the sunshine. Elena seems to fix herself bit by bit, picking up her pieces and glue them back together with their friendship (or more, Rebekah really doesn't think whatever they have can be described with such a mundane word.) They both smile easier, quicker and Rebekah has to admit they balance out each other, pulling the other back from the edge.

~oOo~

Rebekah finds the fierce love, the acceptance she always yearned for, and even tries to reach out to her brothers after Elena's insistence. It surprises Rebekah that Elena sees humanity in Klaus and tries to reconcile her with him, but to further questions Elena's reply is only a shrug and a 'family is everything' speech. Though Nik and Elijah are deeply buried beneath some supernatural drama involving witches and lost, magical hallows, Elijah meets her.

It's only a quick meeting, not a tearful family reunion – but in reality they never really had one. This was their secret wish: they wanted to be a happy family, always and forever, to be the epitome of some naive idea, when family is rarely an easy thing. It could make your life hell and they still could love you (her brothers) or simply it could be the worst thing what happened to you and no one could hate you more than your own blood (her parents).

"You look happy," Elijah says when he sees her and smiles one of his genuine, warm smiles. "In fact, my dear sister, you're shining, I'm glad that at least you found happiness with, well, I assume with a human."

_Oh._ Rebekah thinks and files this information for later and also curses herself for not realizing sooner.

"And you look… weary," she says bluntly, because although Elijah is eternally frozen in his mid twenties and time doesn't have a hold on him, he looks tired. There's something in his eyes that suggests he's elsewhere in mind, working through things.

"Ah, it's nothing to worry about," he answers lightly. "Just our brother, it's tiresome to keep an eye on him all the time."

His tone is soft and it says a lot of things: He won't give up on Nik, he won't turn his back on their family again, and tries to piece them back together. And in that moment Rebekah hopes with all her heart that it will work out somehow. Maybe they're not broken beyond repair and this gives her hope.

~oOo~

When Rebekah returns home – a strange word to use when they are always on the road, but she finds that home is more than a place, it's being with the people she belongs – Elena is obviously troubled.

She went off to her own soul-searching adventure to find Damon Salvatore and reconcile with her own past but as Rebekah walks in on a very drunk Elena, she suspects that things didn't go exactly as planned. A gut-wrenching feeling overwhelms her that Elena will come loose at the seams and fall into pieces, her ghosts of her past tearing her apart. And that's when she truly admits to herself that she wants the old Elena, or at least a whole, not broken one and feels fiercely protective of her.

Rebekah doesn't ask anything, she just sits down next to Elena, who is sprawled in front of the couch with whiskey in her hand. Rebekah gently pries the bottle from her grasp and takes a long sip as silently waits for Elena to begin her story. They have this understanding, and this unconditional trust is what fascinates her the most.

"We agreed to continue to look for a way to free Stefan, but… Well, Damon was his usual self…" Elena trails off but continues after a little headshake and sigh. "No, actually that's not true, he was worse. When Stefan was… around, Damon was different…" She gestures helplessly around, indicating everything and nothing, a world seemingly a lifetime ago.

"I can't do that," Elena continues after a long pause and sits up, her shoulder touching Rebekah's, which sends a pleasant shiver down her spine. Rebekah has to break away from musing about this new-found spark between them to focus on what Elena said.

But it doesn't take much time to figure out what she meant: She can't be selfish, not even when she lost her whole family. She wants to live, she wants to heal and she doesn't push people away.

"I know," Rebekah says softly, squeezing Elena's hand. But instead of letting go, she holds on tightly.

They look at each other, Elena smiling weakly and Rebekah wondering about everything, but mostly about love. She searched for that feeling so long, she wanted it from her family and when they fell apart, she was frantically reaching for anything that resembled to that feeling. So when Alexander showed up, she chalked up his attention and the flame between them as love. But in the end it was nothing more than some destructive need; they both filled the gap in their souls with something that was intense and all hard edges and desperation, and in the end it did more damage than good.

But as she looks at Elena, she feels a gentle but steady warmth and realizes that love isn't always about the thrilling highs and extremities, it's about helping the other, being the supporting pillar they need. And with Elena on her side it's like she found a missing piece of herself and they complete each other in ways she couldn't imagine.

So she doesn't really think when she leans forward to close the distance between them, it's some instinctive move. She brushes her lips against Elena's and it isn't strange or weird or wrong. For a moment everything is how it should be: full of hope with a promise of life together.

But when Elena goes rigid, Rebeka pulls away and sees the other's wide eyes. She doesn't stay to figure out what she saw in Elena's eyes, just runs with vampire speed and doesn't look back. She can't even breathe the dread is so overwhelming: The fear of losing and ruining everything is the only thing she has on her mind.

She can't help but think she's a Mikaleson through and through, because in the end they always destroy their own happiness.

~oOo~

Rebekah is sitting on a park bench and vacantly stares at the people living their life around her: rushing for a meeting, playing with their children, strolling with their loved ones. When Elena sits beside her – painfully close –, she doesn't dare to look up or move, she just stiffens. She fears what's coming next; she doesn't want another person to leave her.

"I think this is our thing, right?" Elena asks lightly, and this makes Rebekah look at her. Elena only smiles, and takes Rebekah hand, intertwining their fingers. "Me searching for you? I think it's kind of a habit, though not a bad one."

Rebekah's mind goes blank, she can't think of anything to say, she can't really think, period.

"Rebekah," Elena's voice is soft and soothing, "you were the one who helped me find the way back to myself. Honestly, I don't know what we have, but one thing I know for sure, I don't want to lose it."

Elena then leans against Rebekah, and the scene is so absurd and cheesy, yet the weight is lifted from Rebekah's chest and she feels genuine happiness right then. Maybe their life won't be devoid of supernatural dramas and disasters and ups and downs, but as long as they have each other, they can get through everything.

And though Rebekah's life isn't normal or ordinary and definitely not a fairy tale, she got her happy ending and it's more than enough because it's a happy ending that never really ends.


End file.
